A Comparative Study Of The Italian Fashion Brands Marketing Strategies In Milan And Shanghai

Italian traditional skill-based apparel SMEs(small and medium size enterprise) are gradually reduced, while fashion brands with marketing planning has made more and more market share in the international market. At the same time, Chinese market has a strong demand to purchase; it is a promising target market for Italian local brands to take into consideration in their globalization strategy.Based on theoretical and background research, this paper focused on 10 representative, typical Italian clothing brands, proceeded several market research in Milan and Shanghai within the same season, which includes the characteristics study of the selected Italian and Chinese stores, the innovative use of stores’ District Gravitational Attraction Index, the application of Style Image Positioning Chart for the evaluation of the overall store image and style preferences, etc., in order to analyze of the similarities and differences of Chinese and Italian stores’ marketing strategy. In addition, through consumer cognition and perspective survey of the selected brands in China and Italy, this paper made an analyzation of the differences between their target market strategies. Also, by the new usage of Radar Chart analysis, this paper generated a comparative study of the internationalization and localization strategy of Italian clothing brand. In the end, this paper summarized the international development success of Italian fashion brand, and offered a reference to Chinese fashion brands’ globalization and development strategies.Study results showed that:(1) In terms of the difference in store marketing strategies, firstly, regarding to store location, the Italian brands choose to open physical stores in the most important and commercial business districts in Shanghai and Milan. The relatively larger acreage and population dominated in Shanghai provides Italian brands more expansion space.Secondly, in terms of the visual merchandising and floor plan in stores, the stores in Milan are significantly larger than the ones in Shanghai; furthermore, the acreage difference between stores in Shanghai is small while it is dominantly large in Milan. For store classification, the Italian brand stores are mostly ancient independent boutiques on commercial streets while stores in Shanghai are modern-decorated and open in well-known department stores.Thirdly, regarding to the shop image strategy, there are implement and unified brand image strategy, partial adjustment strategy, image enlargement strategy, and differentiated store design strategy.(2)In terms of the consumer differentiates adjustment strategy, firstly, for target market strategy, among the variety of consumer positioning, there are unified strategy, local adjustment strategy, enlargement strategy, and localization strategy. On the issue of the occasion of apparel usage, Chinese and Italian consumers provided results with significant differences.Secondly, in terms of consumer cognitive upgrade strategies, consumer perspectives showed high consistency in the relatively traditional, classic and conservative aesthetic Italian brands. Consumer perspective and store image showed a significant difference; the recognition of the selected Italian fashion brands was slightly higher in Chinese market; consumers in different countries with different cultural backgrounds would generate a variety of brand perspective and cognition; there is always a gap between the ideal image of the brand as it was planned to convey and the actual perspective from the real consumers.